php curl request returns nothing - php

Question

i am using codeigniter and my code is as follows :
Controller :
$json_string = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?origin=' . $user_addr . '&destination=' . $vendor_city .'&mode=Montreal';
$json = $this->curl_get_contents($json_string);
$obj = json_decode($json, true);
$this->load->view('get_direction_pg',$obj);
public function curl_get_contents($url)
{
$ch = curl_init($url);
if ($ch == FALSE) {
return array('error' =>"failed");
}else{
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 0);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
return $result;
}
}
and it if i access var_dump($routes);
it says,
undefined variable routes.

Answer 1

try using this: i.e. encoding the vars - before putting into url
$json_string = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?origin=' . urlencode($user_addr) . '&destination=' . urlencode($vendor_city) .'&mode=Montreal';
the parameters should be encoded for url, otherwise it is being invalid, and hence you are getting that error

Answer 2

Try this:
public function curl_get_contents($url)
{
$ch = curl_init($url);
if ($ch == FALSE) {
return array('error' =>"failed");
}
else
{
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER,0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 0);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
return $result;
}
}